


Next time will be better

by elvntari



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Murder Family, feanorian family dynamics, feanorians - Freeform - Freeform, maedhros analysis, maedhros character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 16:27:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13505328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elvntari/pseuds/elvntari
Summary: Maedhros muses about being a weird dad/uncle to those two kids who's family he murdered. Also, sadness about lost family members.





	Next time will be better

**Author's Note:**

> This is a lot less poetic than my last fic, but that's because I'm writing from a different pov and about a different subject. Personally, while I think that Maedhros is still pretty language-savvy, Fingon is probably more flowery and poetic than him (at least after thrangorodrim, he is- before that I think Maedhros was the poetic one.)

He remembered what it felt like to be woken up early by small children begging for attention- having six younger siblings had left him pretty experienced- but it didn’t make him any less regretful about his lack of sleep. He needed more these days. Was he getting old? Impossible but, then again, he had witnessed the impossible before. Maybe he’d die before he fulfilled his oath. Did he want that? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about much anymore.

He was sure about how to cook eggs, though, regardless of how many times his brother asked him if he really, _truly_ was sure that he could do that. It’d been a long time since they’d started cooking properly for themselves again- he supposed that came with living without any company. When they were children, their mother had insisted that they learn how to care for themselves, just in case, but that was so very long ago. He would’ve just killed the chickens and roasted them like they did around campfires while hunting, but the boys didn’t like it, so they collected eggs instead.

They owed them that, at least.

Those boys could probably convince them to do anything by whining and threatening to cry- they were guilty enough as it was. Elros was angrier than his brother, though. First, he was angry at them, but then, as he grew up, he got angry at his parents. Maedhros tried to convince him that he shouldn’t be- that he should be angry at him instead, but nothing could change his opinion. He didn’t understand. In truth, neither did Mae, but it felt wrong to criticise the woman that they had killed.

Elrond was quiet, but affectionate. He was always looking for someone to hold his hand, to carry him- someone to cling to. Though, he was not weak. He was a healer- Maedhros could feel him do it, even when he thought he was being subtle. It was like a surge of warmth and energy rushing through his body, amplified by touch. This also made him feel guilty. He should not be the one needing healing.

He knew it was only a matter of time before the bitterness of the world turned him angry, too. Rightfully so, he thought, that kid has been through enough to justify anything.

He never considered that he was the same.

Sometimes he couldn’t wake up. He knew that he needed to, but all he could do was stare into the hazy lost focus of the ceiling and breathe. It was worse for Maglor, though, who would spend days on end bedridden. And when he was out of bed, he would sing things so sad- so painful that no one dared listen except for him. For some reason, he never cried.

He never considered that he was immune because he was already that melancholic.

He made a vow, to himself and under no witness, that he would try to be the best parent he could. He had never had any children of his own, but he had spent his life around younger relatives- he had watched them grow up. He remembered how he was the test child: fully grown before his parents chose to have another. He remembered caring for his brothers. He remembered being a third parent to them.

His parents were lucky that they didn’t have to be there when they died. He was left to shoulder all of the mourning alone- Maglor would claim to understand, but he didn’t really know- not truly.

He wanted the twins to stay small and dependent forever; to never go to war and to always threaten to cry when someone said they were going to kill the chickens. He wanted them safe more than anything in the entire world. Sometimes he thought, if he lay still and silent enough, time would stop, and they would never grow up. They were more precious than any silmaril, he thought, yet if he had been put in their mother’s position, he would not have had the option to choose to save them. He made that choice on her behalf.

She had been through enough, too. Maybe, in another world, they would’ve been friends.

But time never stopped, and he woke up and made them breakfast every day, and he took them walking in the forest, and taught them how to lay traps (they were still so against shooting anything, bless them).

If the whole world turned to rot and ashes, at least he could try and raise them into beams of light and warmth. If there was no hope for him and Maglor, then he would, at the very least, give them a fighting chance at goodness.

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of mega sad but at least it's hopeful at the end and if that's not in the spirit of Tolkien then I don't know what is! (I'm crying send help)


End file.
